The US State Department has defended Kiev’s right to use airstrikes against civilians in eastern Ukraine explaining that it is defending the country.

“The government of
Ukraine is defending the country of Ukraine and I think they have
every right to do that as does the international community,”
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in response to RT’s
Gayane Chichakyan’s question about Ukrainian air force strikes in
eastern Ukraine.

“The people of Ukraine have the right to live in peace and
security without Russian-backed separatists attacking their homes
and going into buildings and I think that is where the root cause
of this is and we shouldn’t forget that fact,” Psaki added
during the briefing on Monday.

Despite the horrific footage of eastern Ukrainian villages and
towns being shelled by the Ukrainian air force, the State
Department continues to stand behind Kiev’s actions, saying that
all those killings are the fault of anti-Kiev forces.

“To be clear, on the ground the reports that we’ve seen and
the vast majority of people who are reporting from the ground are
reporting that the Russian-backed separatists are the ones who
are not only engaged in violence and efforts to take over
buildings and attack people and innocent civilians and they have
no place doing that in a country that is a sovereign country like
Ukraine.”

Just last week, 12 civilians were killed including a five-year
old in the eastern Ukrainian village of Kondrashovka, which was
shelled by Kiev troops. At least five shells hit the settlement,
destroying an entire street in the peaceful Lugansk region
community, 25km from the city of Lugansk.

Aside from approving Kiev’s actions, the US State Department
denied reports on the number of refugees fleeing the conflict in
eastern Ukraine to Russia, including UN’s statistics.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated that the number
of Ukrainian refugees in Russia has reached 110,000 people, while 54,400 others have
been internally displaced. In response, the State Department’s
spokesperson Maria Harf said she cannot confirm this data, and
thus can’t consider it reliable.